WEBVTT

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- Thank you. Okay Good evening, everybody and welcome to the fourth night of budget hearing. Um and today

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- is Thursday, September 10th 2026. The time is 503 and I will call this meeting to order. We have a quorum

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- of council members here presence or currently here. We are missing counselor Hawk. But of course, as

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- All right, next up is the item two, which is adoption of the agenda. Does anybody need to make changes?

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- See, I'm missing my caffeine today. So would anybody like to make any changes to tonight's agenda? Madam

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- President, I have one. Okay. Council, I do move to amend tonight's agenda to add item four B.

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- we're we'd be asking to reopen fund 1000 dash 0626 county general animal control immediately following

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- our budget review and before item number five second okay we got a motion and a second on that change

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- is there any questions or comments on this item no okay all right so seeing none I will

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- So all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda as amended, signify by saying aye. All those opposed,

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- same sign. All right. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Okay. Next up, it is the same thing that

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- we've been doing for the past three nights now going into night four. We've been doing very well and

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- I don't expect us to stop the train now. But again,

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- The again for those quickly the public hearing for twenty twenty seven budgets is Tuesday, October six

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- and the final adoption for the budgets is Tuesday, October 20th and as promised. All rise because Council

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- is here. So so we have a council

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- But again, those are these are just presentations that we will forward on for further consideration.

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- Again, one thing that I want to remind those you should already know, but again, doesn't help to make

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- a nice little reminder. Each person or each department has a time frame. So please stay within that

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- time frame and we will do that as same or the same.

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- with council questions and comments on that. We will stick to comments and questions related to the

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- budget, and we will proceed accordingly. There will be a timer or a ding when you hit your five minute

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- mark and your one minute mark, so staff will be able to help with that, and then TSD will have your

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- timers on the screens here. Next up, we will do what we normally do, and we'll look to the auditor's

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- office for an update.

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- So take it away, please. Good evening, Council. On the screen you should see the updated deficit calculation.

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- Not a lot has changed in this. We had changes in two funds. That's going to be Fund 1000 and then one

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- way down at the very bottom of the spreadsheet.

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- You'll notice that the amount reflected on the 4B is still different than the amount reflected on this

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- spreadsheet for a handful of funds. The state is still working on getting that technical glitch figured

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- out. But for now, everything in the 4B aside from just those six funds should appear accurate. And those

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- are highlighted in yellow at the bottom of this document. So you can easily see what numbers are not well.

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- other than that we don't have any other updates unless there are questions for our office anybody have

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- any questions for the auditor's office yes council member Iverson yeah real quick I think on this spreadsheet

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- that's included on the screen whoever's controlling that could you scroll down a little bit so we see

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- the 25 26 and 27 CNAV information on the right hand side and

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- Ms. Woodruff or Ms. Gregory, could you explain what these numbers are and why they're decreasing? So

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- the CNAP is a certified net assessed value. That's gonna take all of the assessed value of all the parcels

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- in the county and then it's going... You go for it, sorry. And then it's going to deduct any of the

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- deductions that are applied. And so with SB1, you'll notice that that certified net assessed value has

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- been decreasing over the last two years, whereas typically we would see that value trend upwards. So

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- if someone in the public wanted to assess the impact of Senate Enrolled Act 1 on Monroe County's finances,

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- this would be one measure that they could do that. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments?

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- on this item. Thank you all very much for that. Next up, we will go to the amended portion. Oh,

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- I'm so sorry. Sorry, Councilor Hong. Just wanted to make a comment here about that interaction there.

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- If the net assessed value goes down, that forces, if we get a levy increase, that forces the rate up.

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- So for those people who did not get

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- assistance on their assessed value that means that you know they're going to have a higher rate it will

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- not receive the lesser assessed value there's more to this cookie once it crumbles to understand thank

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- you much council hawk and thank you to the

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- next up we will move to the amended portion of the agenda. Council I move to open for discussion and

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- review fund 1000-0626 County General Animal Control and I ask that we amend account line 35040 Animal

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- Shelter Interlocal from $480,808 to set it to $566,000

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- $547 second all right we got a motion in a second and I'll look to Michelle or miss Turner King for

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- this explanation so after last night's meeting I inquired with mr. Cockrell to see if he received the

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- upcoming years interlocal he received it this morning and so this is the value reflected in the interlocal

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- I will go to councillor Wilton then Iverson next I did it increase so much

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- know that I have that answer I can I can ask Mr. Cockrell but I mean I just received the number from

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- the interlocal so I don't know if he had conversations about the increased value or anything of that

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- nature if it's something that he negotiate or is it just I think there's a formula I think there's a

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- formula that they use and I don't know exactly the formula

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- I don't get real antsy, but. Just some vague formula that is part of an interlocal between us. I think

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- we have need to have a greater explanation before us, given that in this community how we treat animals,

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- manage out animals, get animals away, keep animals close.

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- Is such a huge value every counselor up here should be able to say roughly as we work this out. This

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- is why this is and We need to be able to say if it's going to keep getting worse because dog chow or

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- whatever. We've got to be able to say that a little bit more affirmatively. So maybe he or somebody

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- could send something to us that really breaks this down.

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- So I'm quickly reading through the interlocal and it says that the twenty twenty seven interlocal cost

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- calculations. The interlocal cost from Monroe County in the town of Ellisville is determined by multiplying

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- the number of animals taken in from the jurisdiction in twenty twenty five by the cost per animal figure.

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- So for Monroe County there was one thousand four hundred eighty seven

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- the cost of operations based per animal animals taken in and they multiply that by $381, which is the

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- cost of operations based per animal. Is that for a year? I'm sorry to interject. It would be for the

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- year. All of them don't stay a year, right? I'm sorry. The cost is for a year. The cost the $381 per

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- 3,742, but let's see if I can find out what that number means. I think that number reflects the total

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- number of animals in the shelter for 2025, including those picked up by animal control, surrendered,

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- and are stray animals. And so I think what it looks like,

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- And I can confirm with Jeff, but I'm just trying to give you some explanation right now, is that they

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- divide the animal care and control expenditures, operational cost, and revenue by the number of animals

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- that they cared for within the year. So I don't think the animals are staying for the entire year, but

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- it's how many animals they serviced within that year. That doesn't service doesn't seem right.

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- I mean, it's kind of an odd formula. I'll go to, I think Iverson had his hand up next and then I'll

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- go Iverson and then Henry. Just a quick comment. I know we discussed the sheriff's budgets just last

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- night and we didn't have this. So I know that there's some concern over the formula, but I am pretty

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- happy with how fast this came back to us. So thank you for working on this today and getting this to

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- us the very next day. Councilmember Henry.

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- Thank you, I would show sentiments though. I think this conversation has opened up maybe what I'm looking

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- for now. So that formula, I mean that dollar amount is probably those expenditures are where the cost

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- is, right? So it would be interesting to know what that cost per animal was last year, the year before

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- that, because that's the devil in the details about the cost differential. So if it is an uptick in animal,

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- That's fine. But it seems to me that that 380 is the number that moved. I want to know what what caused

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- it to go from whatever last year's numbers to this year's number. It's in the expenditures. Do we have

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- a table or like an understanding of that? I mean, the only table that I'm looking at in the memo is

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- a breakdown of incoming animals by jurisdiction and source and it shows like city counties other than Monroe.

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- and then the cost per animal. So it only has 20, 25 numbers. It doesn't have any other numbers, so I

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- can't really give you a year to year comparison. To Councilor Deckard's point, that's where the cost

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- of the dog shower is. So that's the 60,000, right? So that's the number I'd want to see, what was the

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- cost per animal? That's the delta. That's the thing we need to know, I think. It's either that or more

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- animals. Possibly. Or both.

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- to know, I think, and to... Oh, what I hear from council is there's some hesitation on moving on, moving

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- forward with this, and I'd hate to put Ms. Turner King on the spot for this, but it sounds like Mr.

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- Cockrell should give us an explanation. And I can ask Jeff to provide an explanation to council. Okay,

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- so then...

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- one second, Councillor Fido. I just, so then maybe we need to table this until we get this information

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- and we can table this until next Wednesday's budget session. Councillor Fido. So might there be a way

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- to also find out what other entities are paying? Like is Ellisville paying or is this, are we paying

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- Ellisville? I mean, is there a breakdown somewhere of all those entities?

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- cost for Monroe County and then the town of Ellitsville though you know I'd like to see included with

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- this their budget that they turned in to get their budget approved did they have a new building recently

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- do they have additional employees

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- Did they all get a gigantic raise, you know, taking care of animals? I think they should be paid efficiently

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- and effectively, just like everybody else. But we need to see their budget before we vote on this, and

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- at least we'll have the information in front of us. But I will quote my good friend, Warren Henniger,

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- and you've

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- Some of you folks might remember him. He felt how important this animal control is, especially for farmers

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- and so forth because

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- You have wild animals running around that affects your livestock. It affects everything you do. It's

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- important for neighborhoods so that we don't have family disputes from one family over the other of

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- dogs running loose. I recall not that many years ago when everybody thought it was fine to open up the

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- door and let Fido go out and do whatever they wanted in everybody else's yard.

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- So animal control is important for safety, public safety. But I think that we we deserve to have an

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- explanation of their budget. So again, here in some hesitation from Council and I correct myself. Budget

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- five is next Tuesday. So Council.

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- I'll make a motion to table this item to our Tuesday, September 15th meeting, pending more information

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- comes from legal. OK, we got a motion in a couple of seconds. And any further questions or comments

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- on this item? All right.

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- Seeing none, all those in favor of tabling this request until next Tuesday, signify by saying aye. Aye.

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- All those opposed, same song. All right, motion carries. Thank you very much for that. Okay, next up,

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- we will go right into our budget presentation. First up, we'll start with the county fair department.

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- Council, I move to open for discussion and review fund 1000-0806, county general fairgrounds.

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- second. All right, we got a motion in the second and we are joined by the good people from the county

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- fair board. Welcome. Go ahead. I would just give an update of what we've used some of these funds for.

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- I don't know. Most of you know our carnivals kind of set up in a U shaped pattern with like a line right

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- to the middle of its best way to describe it. We've actually got

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- of it now blacktop the path. So strollers, wheelchairs. That and when it rains like it does when fair

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- weeks going on, they're not tracking through the mud. We've actually put drains in there so they can

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- put all their cables and stuff so they don't trip over that. And then we've done some tie outs for our

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- cattle, livestocks. Just building maintenance is what we use most of this for.

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- Thank you very much for that. Any questions or comments? I knew her hand was going to go up first. Councilor

00:17:05.120 --> 00:17:11.976
- Hawk. Well, I know a lot of people were very concerned about when we had so much flooding and some of

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- the vendors were really concerned about what was going on there. And so I know you've got, you know,

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- get your hands full, but that's a big part of what has to happen because we count on

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- revenue from those vendors, and we count on them being there because the public likes to visit with

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- them as well. So I look forward to hearing what the result of your plan is. Well, I can touch on that

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- a little bit. Actually, while the fair was going on, our take on, which does all of our arena events,

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- dirt work and stuff, they actually started working on the

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- we've we've we've cut open the ditch that was there. We found some pipes have been smashed. So that

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- is actually in the process now of being worked on. It's kind of an ongoing project is the weather allows

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- and time allows because he's donating a lot of his services to help us with that. So we have started

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- getting a lot of that mitigated. Do you anticipate it will be corrected before?

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- The next fair say season. Yes, yes, it'll be corrected. We're hoping to be done by winter, but we're

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- just since he's donating and we're not pushing it real hard since we don't have a whole lot of fair

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- going on right now in that building. Questions or comments for our fair. Alright, seeing none, that

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- was pretty self explanatory and easy. Maybe please have a roll call vote.

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- Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hawke. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor

00:18:57.867 --> 00:19:06.711
- Henry. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up,

00:19:06.711 --> 00:19:15.729
- we will have the planning department. Council, I move to open for discussion and review Fund 1000-0079

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- County General Planning.

00:19:19.042 --> 00:19:25.960
- second. All right, we got a motion in a second. We are joined by director John. Welcome. Good evening,

00:19:25.960 --> 00:19:32.676
- counsel. Thanks for having me. Um, so I do have a printout of a corrected budget that I worked with

00:19:32.676 --> 00:19:36.638
- Kim show with. So I'm just going to pass this out for just

00:20:02.626 --> 00:20:10.396
- So from the packet, just a quick correction. We have offered a conditional offer of employment to an

00:20:10.396 --> 00:20:18.090
- office manager that's internal to the county and they have over three years of service. So I've put

00:20:18.090 --> 00:20:26.014
- just the edited numbers in red to the side. So essentially it's asking for a slight increase in salary

00:20:26.466 --> 00:20:37.520
- matching the 2027 Cola grid for that position. And then that also changed the longevity, the FICA and

00:20:37.520 --> 00:20:48.574
- the perf. And Kim did help with that and reviewed the total math on that. So we are in good shape. So

00:20:48.574 --> 00:20:53.342
- that's the slight change there. Is that it?

00:20:53.506 --> 00:21:02.834
- I just wanted to note this is just a flat budget just as we were directed so no changes other than just

00:21:02.834 --> 00:21:08.574
- the ones that I'm presenting to you now and we have reduced our

00:21:08.898 --> 00:21:17.064
- overall budget by $740 from last year, so we took some money out of the training and travel. We also

00:21:17.064 --> 00:21:25.635
- reduced some funds from the service maintenance and repair of the fleet vehicle, for instance, but really

00:21:25.635 --> 00:21:33.882
- we're pretty limited in our budget right now. We don't really have anything extra other than just the

00:21:33.882 --> 00:21:38.814
- staff costs, I would say, or the lion's share of the budget.

00:21:41.346 --> 00:21:47.978
- Thank you very much for that. Any questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Hawk. I don't think I asked

00:21:47.978 --> 00:21:54.676
- this question yesterday, though. I thought about it. When we were talking to the building department

00:21:54.676 --> 00:22:01.772
- and about the funds, the fees that come in are supposed to go into a separate fund, I thought the planning

00:22:01.772 --> 00:22:06.878
- department fees were to go into that fund as well. Or is it a separate fund?

00:22:07.970 --> 00:22:16.059
- There is a requirement under one of the state laws that passed this year that does require a separate

00:22:16.059 --> 00:22:24.147
- fund for permitting fees. So that will be the case for improvement location permits, which are issued

00:22:24.147 --> 00:22:32.157
- by our office and building permits by the building department. So some of this money then would have

00:22:32.157 --> 00:22:35.646
- normally gone into County General, correct?

00:22:35.938 --> 00:22:44.390
- you would have collected would have gone into County General and now it's going to go in the separate

00:22:44.390 --> 00:22:52.842
- holding account and then we're budgeting for it anyway in County General and then they're supposed to

00:22:52.842 --> 00:23:01.709
- get some kind of quarterly reimbursement if there's money in that permitting fee to pay back for expenses.

00:23:01.709 --> 00:23:05.438
- Is that how you understand it? It's hard to.

00:23:05.666 --> 00:23:13.131
- quite always understand where the state was going with their changes but my understanding is that they

00:23:13.131 --> 00:23:20.379
- wanted it to be in a separate fund so that there would be a way of maybe transparently showing that

00:23:20.379 --> 00:23:27.700
- we were not collecting more funds than the department needed to operate but again we could have done

00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:34.078
- that without creating a separate fund but only I would say of our total that we collect

00:23:34.306 --> 00:23:42.866
- just right now to date, I would say it's about a 40% split. So 40% of our office collects those permit

00:23:42.866 --> 00:23:50.679
- fees, and then the other 60% would not go into that fund. So that would be like for variances

00:23:50.679 --> 00:23:58.990
- or subdivisions, things like that would not collect under that fund. I'd like you to learn. Anybody

00:23:58.990 --> 00:24:01.566
- else have any other questions?

00:24:05.794 --> 00:24:15.633
- Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to understand this because I I was aware of the new fund. So is

00:24:15.633 --> 00:24:25.375
- there a is there no budget for that fund or will there be? Oh, hi. I answer this. So we are working

00:24:25.375 --> 00:24:34.142
- with the state and just like whenever the building department presented, there's a lot of

00:24:34.690 --> 00:24:41.098
- questions up in the air and it's been over a month now since we've asked the state some of those questions

00:24:41.098 --> 00:24:47.146
- and they are still working on getting us answers. So when they get us the answers and when we figure

00:24:47.146 --> 00:24:53.255
- out what the next steps are gonna be, we'll have both departments come back to council. We'll do some

00:24:53.255 --> 00:24:59.304
- net zero appropriations, D appropriations. Ultimately, it's not going to change where the money ends

00:24:59.304 --> 00:25:02.238
- up. It's just making a lot more hoops for us to.

00:25:10.306 --> 00:25:22.210
- see another that um more information is forthcoming at the auditors conference which is not until October

00:25:22.210 --> 00:25:33.664
- um okay any other questions yes council I understand council I move in this fund in line 10068 office

00:25:33.664 --> 00:25:38.942
- manager that we set that line from 51584 to 57

00:25:39.170 --> 00:25:46.361
- three oh four uh that will require a change in line one seven six zero one longevity from thirty two

00:25:46.361 --> 00:25:53.766
- hundred to thirty six hundred it will require a change in line eighteen one oh one FICA from forty five

00:25:53.766 --> 00:26:00.886
- seven sixty to forty seven six fifty one and finally in line eight one eight two zero one perf from

00:26:00.886 --> 00:26:07.294
- eighty four thousand ten dollars to eighty four thousand eight hundred twenty two dollars

00:26:07.394 --> 00:26:15.561
- for a new total in this personnel line of $755,357. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second.

00:26:15.561 --> 00:26:23.648
- Are you all good with that total? Okay, I just want to make sure. Okay. Any other further questions

00:26:23.648 --> 00:26:31.977
- or comments on this change? Yes, Councilor Hawke. I just think this really calls into question so that

00:26:31.977 --> 00:26:33.918
- we can clearly see when

00:26:34.690 --> 00:26:41.772
- When one employee moves from one department to another, let's say they've got 10 years experience in

00:26:41.772 --> 00:26:48.853
- that one department, and they're replacing somebody who only had one year's experience, suddenly the

00:26:48.853 --> 00:26:56.286
- new department has a big jump in their budget. And before all that happens, they have somehow the others,

00:26:56.286 --> 00:27:02.526
- one of the departments have to work out whether or not there's any overtime or comp time

00:27:02.626 --> 00:27:11.517
- still available to the people. So it's difficult for the department heads to try to work around all

00:27:11.517 --> 00:27:20.497
- of this and make sure they have it right in their budgets and to look at what they can really afford

00:27:20.497 --> 00:27:29.654
- to do. Not everybody can. So. But on the plus side, we get to keep accounting employee. So that's also

00:27:29.654 --> 00:27:31.966
- something to be proud of.

00:27:33.186 --> 00:27:40.783
- So yeah, yes, Councilor. So speaking of the overtime issue, I have the sensitivity to that in the previous

00:27:40.783 --> 00:27:47.882
- situation I was involved in years ago. And so there were no over times. I'll just ask it. There was

00:27:47.882 --> 00:27:55.195
- no overtime for this employee coming. This employee did have some comp time, but they actually elected

00:27:55.195 --> 00:28:02.366
- to use it before transfer. So that got taken care of. Yes, for this new transfer. Good news. Agreed.

00:28:03.010 --> 00:28:13.324
- All right, any other further questions or comments? Then with the bottom line there, the 746-537, does

00:28:13.324 --> 00:28:23.738
- that change? It should give us a new total. But this was to change the personnel category. But I guess,

00:28:23.738 --> 00:28:32.350
- yeah. Wait, that'll change too, right? On the screen. I'm sorry, I just can't see it.

00:28:32.450 --> 00:28:42.833
- that. Can you read that for me so I can write it down? New total will be in the personnel is 755 360.

00:28:42.833 --> 00:28:53.114
- Yes, in my motion I was off by $3 so Kim shell you always have the right total. Alright, so I'm glad

00:28:53.114 --> 00:29:01.054
- we got it. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Wells. Sort of related to the amendment.

00:29:01.186 --> 00:29:13.345
- budget include the new position? Yeah. So that will be an additional. You have to make yes, since we

00:29:13.345 --> 00:29:25.503
- don't know where it's going to be classified, we don't know how to budget for it, so. So this budget

00:29:25.503 --> 00:29:30.078
- is assuming no change at all, so same

00:29:30.274 --> 00:29:40.488
- that are in the approved salary ordinance for 2026 and no additional position. So again, bringing this

00:29:40.488 --> 00:29:50.900
- or for to remind us that we are voting on the amendment for the changes. All those in favor of approving

00:29:50.900 --> 00:30:00.222
- the amendment signify by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right, motion carries.

00:30:00.706 --> 00:30:11.093
- Thank you very much. Now may we please have a roll call vote for the overall budget. Councilor Iverson?

00:30:11.093 --> 00:30:21.180
- Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker?

00:30:21.180 --> 00:30:28.670
- Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Motion passes 601. Okay, thank you very much.

00:30:30.018 --> 00:30:40.541
- Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up is the extension services. Council, I move to open for discussion

00:30:40.541 --> 00:30:50.965
- and review fund 1000 dash 0011 County General Extension. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second.

00:30:50.965 --> 00:30:59.422
- And I see you're joined by our favorite people and Laura has already. Hey, I like it.

00:30:59.554 --> 00:31:07.762
- I'm sure three times over. Hey, I like it. Go ahead. Good evening. Kip Harmon from the extension office

00:31:07.762 --> 00:31:15.813
- and I don't know if everybody knows Laura from. She's one of our regional operations leaders from the

00:31:15.813 --> 00:31:21.022
- central area. Marion County area. Audi could not make it tonight.

00:31:22.690 --> 00:31:28.712
- I don't know exactly what all you all need to hear, but I'm going to let Laura kind of explain the transition

00:31:28.712 --> 00:31:34.242
- that we're going through. I do have some handouts that some people had requested. I know a couple of

00:31:34.242 --> 00:31:39.991
- council members have requested some extra information, so I've got some of that here, but I'll let Laura

00:31:39.991 --> 00:31:45.575
- start with kind of the transformation part about how things are changing with Purdue Extension. Well,

00:31:45.575 --> 00:31:50.174
- thank you, counselors. This is a lot fancier than Indianapolis City County Council.

00:31:50.530 --> 00:31:58.142
- just starts, you can hear me just when I start talking and the room is beautiful. So yeah, so Purdue

00:31:58.142 --> 00:32:05.755
- Extension, as you guys might know, has been around for over 100 years. Extension itself is what they

00:32:05.755 --> 00:32:13.443
- describe as a three-legged stool. We receive federal, state, and local dollars. In the past 20 years,

00:32:13.443 --> 00:32:19.774
- the federal and state dollars have not seen significant increases. Because of that,

00:32:19.874 --> 00:32:28.437
- we have moved to what is being called a regional model. This is a pretty common model for states across

00:32:28.437 --> 00:32:37.083
- the country who are also in this similar situation. What that does is it divides the state into regions.

00:32:37.083 --> 00:32:45.399
- And we have a map, if you wanna see what creates basically South Central or the 9th region, which is

00:32:45.399 --> 00:32:49.022
- the region that now includes Monroe County.

00:32:49.122 --> 00:32:58.206
- So how that will work is the educators in each of the counties that make up the region nine

00:32:58.402 --> 00:33:06.965
- will have now specific expertise. In the past, the educators were somewhat generalists, but within a

00:33:06.965 --> 00:33:16.037
- program area. So you've got the program areas of 4-H, ag and natural resources, health and human sciences,

00:33:16.037 --> 00:33:22.142
- and community development. So a health and human science educator might

00:33:22.530 --> 00:33:32.702
- And then I spent one day teaching third graders how to budget and

00:33:32.770 --> 00:33:40.203
- the program matter of balance. So they were doing lots of different things. Now those educators will

00:33:40.203 --> 00:33:48.297
- focus all of their time on something that they'll have the opportunity to be an expert on. So the contractual

00:33:48.297 --> 00:33:55.877
- service moves from a dollar amount per person to a service based model, which allows educators to come

00:33:55.877 --> 00:34:02.206
- in and out of Monroe County, not impacting the service, but allowing the expertise of

00:34:02.306 --> 00:34:11.892
- them coming to teach specifically something that meets the needs of Monroe County. So you'll see on

00:34:11.892 --> 00:34:21.766
- the budget, there's a increase of approximately $18,000. What we're proposing based on Monroe County's

00:34:21.766 --> 00:34:27.614
- commitment and passion for extension services is to purchase

00:34:27.906 --> 00:34:36.145
- one educator that would be solely in Monroe County. They would not be a part of the regional service

00:34:36.145 --> 00:34:44.629
- model. This individual would be based here and would remain here as other educators with their specific

00:34:44.629 --> 00:34:53.520
- expertise would come and go based on the needs of Monroe County. This individual would remain the generalist

00:34:53.520 --> 00:34:55.070
- in the sense where

00:34:55.138 --> 00:35:01.769
- they would support educators based on what they might need. A lot of those needs would be very specific

00:35:01.769 --> 00:35:08.145
- to Monroe. So for example, you have a master gardener program. The master gardeners are volunteers.

00:35:08.145 --> 00:35:14.712
- They spend a lot of time in the community beautifying nonprofits, public spaces. This individual would

00:35:14.712 --> 00:35:21.279
- have the opportunity to support those master gardeners in a way that maybe the regional expert on home

00:35:21.279 --> 00:35:25.104
- horticulture might not be able to get into the nitty gritty

00:35:25.104 --> 00:35:32.876
- the details. Some counties have additional staff from the county level. So example in Marion County,

00:35:32.876 --> 00:35:40.724
- I have four administrative staff people. So we don't need an extra generalist educator because I have

00:35:40.724 --> 00:35:48.650
- a program assistant that spends all of their time managing the details of the master gardener program,

00:35:48.650 --> 00:35:52.574
- for example. So for Monroe County, we're proposing

00:35:52.738 --> 00:36:01.580
- that additional person to make sure you have an extension educator that is dedicated to Monroe, as well

00:36:01.580 --> 00:36:10.848
- as those experts that come and go based on programming needs. So that's the difference. The other difference

00:36:10.848 --> 00:36:20.030
- that you might notice in the budget is because these educators will now move between regional county lines.

00:36:20.226 --> 00:36:28.898
- now taking on all of the mileage that would have been charged to specific counties. So you'll see a

00:36:28.898 --> 00:36:37.571
- reduction in that as well. I just learned how your budget and stuff works, but in addition to that,

00:36:37.571 --> 00:36:46.590
- educators receive laptops and IT support from Purdue paid for by counties. Moving forward, they will be

00:36:46.946 --> 00:36:55.082
- paid for by Purdue. So basically, the model shifts technology in the form of laptops. They've always

00:36:55.082 --> 00:37:03.218
- done IT services, even when the county was paying. And transportation and travel would be housed now

00:37:03.218 --> 00:37:11.676
- at Purdue. I think I've told you everything. But please, let me know what questions you have. Of course.

00:37:11.676 --> 00:37:16.670
- I will open it up to council to see if we have any questions.

00:37:17.154 --> 00:37:25.352
- Yes. As far as location of your office, do you plan a change in your location? Not at this time. Not

00:37:25.352 --> 00:37:33.632
- at this time. At this particular time, you want to tell the public where it is? Do you all know where

00:37:33.632 --> 00:37:41.262
- it is? Not all the public understands where your location is. We're at the 3400 South Walnut,

00:37:41.262 --> 00:37:46.782
- which is the, we share off space with the recycle waste management.

00:37:47.906 --> 00:37:55.088
- I know that, but not everybody knows where it is. Because we used to be there in the health building.

00:37:55.088 --> 00:38:02.269
- And that's where we came to recognize where it would be. And then when you moved, people think, well,

00:38:02.269 --> 00:38:09.310
- where did they go? That was a question. And the other question is, as I understand it, that because

00:38:09.310 --> 00:38:12.478
- of the shift and whatever, we no longer have

00:38:12.866 --> 00:38:23.256
- the educator person in residence that would normally be, and I thought it was a state requirement, to

00:38:23.256 --> 00:38:31.710
- have them be the person who sits on the plan commission. And so I guess that's not

00:38:31.938 --> 00:38:38.689
- not going to be the case and somebody's going to appoint this person. And I guess, you know, the person

00:38:38.689 --> 00:38:45.180
- is now appointed and serving, but who is responsible for the appointment? That's a big deal here in

00:38:45.180 --> 00:38:51.865
- Monroe County. You know, what's going on with that planning department? So who is responsible for that

00:38:51.865 --> 00:38:58.356
- appointment? And do people just apply for it or does your board makes a decision or how's that? How

00:38:58.356 --> 00:39:01.342
- do you go about doing that filling that slot?

00:39:02.466 --> 00:39:08.608
- I'm not, oh, do you know? Yeah, our local extension board is the one who appointed, I believe it was

00:39:08.608 --> 00:39:14.750
- Joe Van Deventer to that this past year. And of course, I guess we would probably be reappointing or

00:39:14.750 --> 00:39:20.893
- looking at a new person at some point here in the near future. And of course, we want to ensure that

00:39:20.893 --> 00:39:26.366
- that person lives in the county as well. And that would be one of the big considerations.

00:39:28.034 --> 00:39:35.845
- Yeah, I was just going to add to that. That would most likely be this additional staff person that would

00:39:35.845 --> 00:39:42.987
- be based in Monroe County. And you know, the statute says they also have to live in the county.

00:39:42.987 --> 00:39:50.500
- So that would, you know, impact the hiring procedure, I guess, of who can apply and risk and get the

00:39:50.500 --> 00:39:58.014
- position. Right, so buddy, you think it will be the decision seems I mean, Councilmember Henry knows

00:39:58.562 --> 00:40:05.564
- the rules, I'm certain better than I do. Never having served on on that board. But I think there has

00:40:05.564 --> 00:40:11.941
- to be so many Republicans, so many Democrats doesn't have to be split up. Yeah, I think so,

00:40:11.941 --> 00:40:19.082
- because Jerry, Jerry had to be when Jerry was on there, I think he was the Republican appointment. And

00:40:19.082 --> 00:40:26.083
- so you may not think that's real important. There's all there's one person here thinks that's pretty

00:40:26.083 --> 00:40:26.846
- important.

00:40:28.482 --> 00:40:34.945
- I'm going to do that. I sort of related not I briefly to say, yeah, that is a true statement. I think

00:40:34.945 --> 00:40:41.408
- sometimes the extension that the extension office has been a seat regardless of party in the same way

00:40:41.408 --> 00:40:47.998
- the other two are there. But it's a it's a valid question about how how your regional model may impact.

00:40:48.162 --> 00:40:54.296
- that unique requirement we have to have that person there. And they've been incredibly valuable to the

00:40:54.296 --> 00:41:00.370
- body. We had a, before Joe, we had Mr. Olman who had expertise in forestry and canopy. And I mean, he

00:41:00.370 --> 00:41:06.443
- was always the go-to person to understand canopy coverage in the county. So it was an important asset

00:41:06.443 --> 00:41:12.398
- to have at the table. So I hear that, but I wanna actually ask a little bit more about the regional

00:41:12.398 --> 00:41:15.614
- model. I do appreciate that we would have a dedicated

00:41:15.938 --> 00:41:22.086
- person here. I think it's very important to our community. I know, you know, those that have had family

00:41:22.086 --> 00:41:28.057
- in 4-H and things that that's an asset here. But the only other time I recall bumping into this as a

00:41:28.057 --> 00:41:33.969
- county government is in a regional model is how our health department is sort of regionalized under

00:41:33.969 --> 00:41:39.940
- certain funding. And I guess maybe, yeah, I appreciate you walking through how you'll have access to

00:41:39.940 --> 00:41:45.438
- expertise that can come into the county and someone here. The Citizens Academy line, is that

00:41:45.666 --> 00:41:50.802
- Would that local person be, I guess, operating our Citizens Academy in your budget? It wouldn't be like

00:41:50.802 --> 00:41:55.840
- a specialist from Marion County telling us how to do citizen things in Monroe County, right? It would

00:41:55.840 --> 00:42:00.926
- be here out of the local office, yes, sir. Do you have a portfolio of the other things the generalists

00:42:00.926 --> 00:42:05.470
- would be doing locally that stay here at this point, or are you still working through that?

00:42:05.570 --> 00:42:11.046
- I think we'd still be working through that. And it could be something that if the council was looking

00:42:11.046 --> 00:42:16.576
- for somebody in particular, a particular support like HHS, or if you were looking for more support for

00:42:16.576 --> 00:42:22.051
- A&R or something like that, you could probably direct us in that sense of telling us, we really would

00:42:22.051 --> 00:42:27.635
- like to look for somebody with this expertise to fill that spot. That's useful. And lastly, it's Monroe

00:42:27.635 --> 00:42:33.433
- County dollars funding, Monroe County things. The state and federal grants are, I presume, are the regional

00:42:33.433 --> 00:42:34.238
- specialists or

00:42:34.402 --> 00:42:44.057
- drawing their revenue or their income or are we contributing to a pool of resource that leaves our county?

00:42:44.057 --> 00:42:53.351
- Is that something you can answer? Sort of. The federal, the cost of employees to be, have a home based

00:42:53.351 --> 00:42:57.502
- or just overall cost of employees, the county

00:42:57.890 --> 00:43:06.445
- contractual services only covers a fraction of those costs. So the state and federal dollars cover the

00:43:06.445 --> 00:43:15.084
- majority of that and the local dollars add to it. So in other words, local dollars don't pay for people

00:43:15.084 --> 00:43:23.556
- by head count. And they really never have, because if you looked at the total amount, it's not a huge

00:43:23.556 --> 00:43:27.294
- amount from the local, but it is from state.

00:43:27.522 --> 00:43:33.206
- for taxpayers here we're getting a lot out of this program compared to what we're putting in I think

00:43:33.206 --> 00:43:39.172
- shape that thank you madam president all right we are winding down on time so I know councilmember Decker

00:43:39.172 --> 00:43:45.306
- had something and then councilmember Wilts had something as well yeah the comment I was gonna just generally

00:43:45.306 --> 00:43:51.047
- make I appreciate that you coming in today to explain this and kind of the system a little bit better

00:43:51.047 --> 00:43:52.510
- I talked with audio about

00:43:52.802 --> 00:43:59.100
- the changes that were coming as we were preparing. I'm the liaison for extension. One kind of the back

00:43:59.100 --> 00:44:05.704
- of the napkin thing is I look at any increase kind of going back. There are two kind of historical moments.

00:44:05.704 --> 00:44:11.819
- I just want to remind council just a bit. A couple years back, we made a really concerted effort to

00:44:11.819 --> 00:44:18.056
- make sure that we were being supportive of extension and the roles that they had and in the need that

00:44:18.056 --> 00:44:22.398
- kind of came in here with a lot of public. In fact, the young man that

00:44:22.498 --> 00:44:31.030
- that we've been working with. Uh Kate Smith that hangs out at our meetings and kind of helps us out

00:44:31.030 --> 00:44:39.562
- with things at times. He was part of that effort to kind of help us move on that as a literal youth

00:44:39.562 --> 00:44:48.265
- leader that came out of the program. And then, um, more recently, I think it was last year. We really

00:44:48.265 --> 00:44:50.910
- cut the this budget as we were

00:44:51.138 --> 00:44:58.511
- that process to make it easier on them, but extension really was a big assistance in that and and. Kind

00:44:58.511 --> 00:45:05.884
- of grateful or not grateful, but they were kind in that process for all that they do in this community,

00:45:05.884 --> 00:45:13.115
- and this is an incredibly important part of the county that reaches folks that I think sometimes none

00:45:13.115 --> 00:45:18.078
- of us get to, but often think that we do. And when I kind of compare.

00:45:18.274 --> 00:45:25.675
- where their budget would have been had we not made the cuts that we did last year and kind of go back

00:45:25.675 --> 00:45:33.003
- about three years, two years or so, I see that this increase is not as magnificent as maybe it might

00:45:33.003 --> 00:45:40.477
- feel as we lean into it. And we gotta always kind of keep that kind of in mind as we move forward. And

00:45:40.477 --> 00:45:44.830
- also that what happens on the services with this department

00:45:44.994 --> 00:45:52.898
- is so unique and so special and in such a blend that I think sometimes it's hard to quantify what that

00:45:52.898 --> 00:46:01.109
- precisely is. And I just want to say, I really appreciate that red jacket. I think somebody made a comment

00:46:01.109 --> 00:46:09.090
- about that last night. So what an extension. They communicate well with each other. Thank you, friends.

00:46:09.090 --> 00:46:14.846
- Thank you, council member Wilson. Thank you for coming down here for this.

00:46:15.266 --> 00:46:24.955
- really helpful in understanding how the future of extension is going to operate. I'm an extension person.

00:46:24.955 --> 00:46:34.552
- I was in a different state. But it's close to my heart, and I'm excited for the changes, because I think

00:46:34.552 --> 00:46:44.606
- that'll be a cool way to use resources. We have, I believe, currently or previously we had, for instance, our

00:46:45.634 --> 00:46:57.660
- person, then we had two 4-H, I think the consumer home, obviously that one in my area, but so how will

00:46:57.660 --> 00:47:09.453
- those positions or those people with their current positions change? How is this impacting our local

00:47:09.453 --> 00:47:14.590
- people programming that they've been doing?

00:47:15.618 --> 00:47:23.658
- So we still have, and Kip, jump in. We still have the two 4-H professionals that will remain, and then

00:47:23.658 --> 00:47:31.855
- the other programs. Maybe we're thinking community development. That might be it. Okay, so the community

00:47:31.855 --> 00:47:39.661
- development HHS and A&R educators will be coming and going to different counties based on the needs

00:47:39.661 --> 00:47:41.534
- of that county. What we

00:47:42.242 --> 00:47:50.852
- now have and the educators were allowed to choose their preference on where their home base was. So

00:47:50.852 --> 00:47:59.462
- some educators have moved closer to home, some educators didn't get their first choice. So yeah, so

00:47:59.462 --> 00:48:09.278
- the educators now will move regionally with a home base. So we, I now live in Monroe County. We in Monroe County.

00:48:10.850 --> 00:48:20.025
- We would have two educators that will have their home base here in Monroe County, in addition to Adi.

00:48:20.025 --> 00:48:29.291
- And then we would have the additional generalist that would be the Monroe County, solely Monroe County

00:48:29.291 --> 00:48:39.006
- educator. You're just managing that pool of expertise more broadly. So. You don't get all of the A&R folks,

00:48:40.578 --> 00:48:48.045
- are distributed a little bit. And in addition to the people you named, we've also still do 4-H folks,

00:48:48.045 --> 00:48:55.804
- but you're saying those are different and they're dedicated to Monroe County? Yeah. So how the transition

00:48:55.804 --> 00:49:03.490
- is working, because so many people are passionate about 4-H, is each county will maintain a 4-H presence

00:49:03.490 --> 00:49:10.078
- in the county. Because now the 4-H educators within the county will still have, you know,

00:49:10.434 --> 00:49:19.099
- you a 4-H-er? No, I wasn't. So 4-H-ers, as they call them. There's a bunch of different, you know, you've

00:49:19.099 --> 00:49:27.274
- got civil, you've got leadership and ag and natural resources and STEM. So the educators within the

00:49:27.274 --> 00:49:31.934
- region will have a specialty so that each educator won't

00:49:32.418 --> 00:49:40.556
- have to know a bunch about robots, if that's not their passion, because their passion is livestock.

00:49:40.556 --> 00:49:48.776
- So they will be able to share their expertise, but they'll maintain the 4-H presence. They'll do the

00:49:48.776 --> 00:49:56.915
- 4-H outreach. They'll do fair. They'll do all of that that is 4-H will remain in the county. Models

00:49:56.915 --> 00:50:00.414
- sort of stays for 4-H only. OK, thank you.

00:50:03.330 --> 00:50:11.499
- very much for that. And I will like to move on to a roll call vote, please. Wait, I'm interested.

00:50:11.499 --> 00:50:20.002
- Are we? I'll do one more because we are over time. So Council Huck wrap it up. So if I understand you

00:50:20.002 --> 00:50:28.922
- right, then that means that Clint back that we love will be staying here with our for each group. Correct?

00:50:28.922 --> 00:50:31.006
- Hopefully. Okay, because

00:50:31.842 --> 00:50:41.224
- Our 4-H has exploded with numbers, and they're doing so well. What I would like to suggest is that there

00:50:41.224 --> 00:50:50.873
- are times, and they work real well to be noticeable on Facebook and wherever, but there's a lot of programs

00:50:50.873 --> 00:50:53.822
- that you could do that you could

00:50:54.402 --> 00:51:02.517
- that you could put on some kind of a YouTube or something so that the people at home could really see

00:51:02.517 --> 00:51:11.188
- what's going on with the extension office because a lot of people really do not even know what the extension

00:51:11.188 --> 00:51:19.144
- office does. And I think you could do a better job promoting yourself to the people who are helping

00:51:19.144 --> 00:51:23.838
- to pay for it. And thank you. I agree. I agree completely.

00:51:24.098 --> 00:51:33.584
- Councilor Hawk. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crosley.

00:51:33.584 --> 00:51:43.070
- Yes. And Councilor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Good to see you in person. Thank you.

00:51:44.610 --> 00:51:53.346
- All right, next up is in the budget presentation from the Assessor's Office. Council, I move to open

00:51:53.346 --> 00:52:02.514
- for discussion and review. Fund 1000-0008, County General Assessor, and Fund 1131-0000, Sales Disclosure,

00:52:02.514 --> 00:52:11.163
- and Fund 1224-0000, Reassessment. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. We are joined by

00:52:11.163 --> 00:52:13.758
- our Assessor, Ms. Judy Sharp.

00:52:13.954 --> 00:52:21.864
- and miss Lisa surface. Welcome. Good evening. Good evening, counsel. And you can just run through all

00:52:21.864 --> 00:52:29.852
- your budgets and we'll just wait for TSD to have your timer on. All right, go for it. Sure. Just three

00:52:29.852 --> 00:52:37.761
- budgets as always. General fund. Bottom line, we didn't do anything except what you told us to do. We

00:52:37.761 --> 00:52:39.390
- didn't add anything.

00:52:39.618 --> 00:52:47.999
- Okay, let me go back. We had to put another person in because you'll see when we get into the sales

00:52:47.999 --> 00:52:56.379
- disclosure, we moved them into the general fund we had to this year. So that's the only difference.

00:52:56.379 --> 00:53:05.598
- The general fund budget for sorry, this is probably not where you can hear me. General fund budget this year.

00:53:05.890 --> 00:53:13.693
- Last year, it was 994,373. This year, it's 1,095,849. And the major thing, of course, the 2% raise for

00:53:13.693 --> 00:53:21.269
- everybody in the office. And moving the sales disclosure deputy half, because it was half and half,

00:53:21.269 --> 00:53:29.072
- wasn't it, Lisa? It was fully this time. It was fully in sales. Sales has not been like it used to be.

00:53:29.072 --> 00:53:32.254
- So we're moving her back over. That's it.

00:53:35.618 --> 00:53:45.168
- the sales disclosure, but I was just talking about. The sales disclosure budget last year was 66,114.

00:53:45.168 --> 00:53:54.530
- This year it's eight. Never had an $8 budget, but that's what it will be. Hopefully it'll pick back

00:53:54.530 --> 00:54:03.518
- up. We're getting sales, but putting a person in the sales disclosure really does take it down.

00:54:03.650 --> 00:54:11.888
- And then the next one is the big one, reassessment. Basically, it went up a little bit also.

00:54:11.888 --> 00:54:20.924
- We had to, I think I talked to you earlier. Yeah, it had to be you guys where we're having to do more

00:54:20.924 --> 00:54:29.694
- appraisals and we have to fund those. So we did change some of that money. Actually, it went down.

00:54:29.858 --> 00:54:38.708
- We were, last year, if I'm reading this right, Lisa, it was 951-215. It'll be 916-640. So we never do

00:54:38.708 --> 00:54:47.557
- too much there. I think what Lisa and I did this year was move a few of the different lines more into

00:54:47.557 --> 00:54:55.539
- where we could get the more appraisals if we need it. That's it. If you have any questions,

00:54:55.539 --> 00:54:58.142
- be glad to answer. Thank you.

00:55:00.962 --> 00:55:06.172
- Yes, Councilmember Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for being in. You have, you know, the

00:55:06.172 --> 00:55:11.382
- hard job we were just talking about, you know, the CNAV and the assessed value of the county over the

00:55:11.382 --> 00:55:16.592
- next few fiscals and, you know, half the battle is making sure we have, you know, correct assessments

00:55:16.592 --> 00:55:18.942
- and every nickel we can get. I appreciate it.

00:55:19.010 --> 00:55:24.396
- I want to ask, I guess I maybe forgot from last year, but your board, are they compensated and where

00:55:24.396 --> 00:55:30.102
- does that come out of? It comes out of reassessment. It is in the reassessment, that's what I was looking.

00:55:30.102 --> 00:55:35.541
- I really am glad you brought up the board. I think I have time to compliment my board. Wow, do I have

00:55:35.541 --> 00:55:41.140
- a board and a half this year? We had some, unfortunately, some major changes this year. We lost a couple

00:55:41.140 --> 00:55:45.886
- of board members. One was because her health got too bad and the other one's just tired.

00:55:46.082 --> 00:55:52.428
- And he just decided, I don't think I want to do this. So I was so fortunate, you probably all know Dr.

00:55:52.428 --> 00:55:58.836
- Kurt Zorn. He is now the president of my board. If you don't think this is awesome to have an economist

00:55:58.836 --> 00:56:05.182
- sitting there, it has just been a hoot. And he runs the board. I mean, this man knows what he's doing.

00:56:05.182 --> 00:56:11.158
- And then Linda Williamson came in. Linda has such a background at the city and in redevelopment,

00:56:11.158 --> 00:56:15.902
- knows it all. And then, of course, the board member that has stayed with me,

00:56:16.098 --> 00:56:23.485
- Vicki Reeves. She's my level two. I have to have a level two on here right now. I do and Vicki has been

00:56:23.485 --> 00:56:30.801
- in the assessing world for 25 years and she worked for me and she retired and it was. I thought it was

00:56:30.801 --> 00:56:38.046
- a year and she told me I didn't let her leave for at least a month. I brought her back to come on the

00:56:38.046 --> 00:56:43.870
- board so. And we are meeting. We just had well today and yesterday two full days.

00:56:44.354 --> 00:56:53.538
- It's been a year and a half already, and more appeals than we've ever had. And we're getting through

00:56:53.538 --> 00:57:03.177
- them. And I can't explain any more than that. So it's only in August, September. Yeah, August, September.

00:57:03.177 --> 00:57:12.360
- Time flies. So we always try to get all of our stuff done for the auditor, get it all finished up by

00:57:12.360 --> 00:57:14.270
- the end of the year.

00:57:14.434 --> 00:57:21.363
- We always have, so hopefully we're on track to do the same thing. It's all good, really. I got another

00:57:21.363 --> 00:57:28.224
- new employee that you all authorized. Jason started, it's been two weeks, Lisa? It's two weeks and he

00:57:28.224 --> 00:57:35.019
- went to conference and got his level one already and he's going to go get his level two next Friday.

00:57:35.019 --> 00:57:41.342
- Now, we'll keep our fingers crossed. I think he's going to be great, but he passed level one.

00:57:41.570 --> 00:57:46.575
- I'm so excited for him. I think he's found a good home with us. I know he has. He's going to

00:57:46.575 --> 00:57:52.279
- be so challenged, and that's what we need. So right now, everything's pretty good in the office, I think.

00:57:52.279 --> 00:57:57.768
- Have you heard anything different? Yeah, I appreciate it. Now we're good there. I just wanted to zero

00:57:57.768 --> 00:58:00.190
- in on your board members, and I'll just say,

00:58:00.290 --> 00:58:06.223
- because I'm just going to use time and drive crossly crazy. In my master's program, if you didn't pass

00:58:06.223 --> 00:58:12.099
- econ with any other professor, you had to retake it with Zorn. So it was an incentive not to do well.

00:58:12.099 --> 00:58:17.975
- I have to tell you, I know we've got a little time. Kurt and I go back to when I started this. I just

00:58:17.975 --> 00:58:23.908
- came in as the county assessor, brand new, have January conference. I always sit on the front row. You

00:58:23.908 --> 00:58:29.150
- can see, you can hear better. I always sit on the front row. And this very tall gentleman,

00:58:29.442 --> 00:58:35.696
- was in the front, he came up and he was the new commissioner of the, back then it was the tax commissioner,

00:58:35.696 --> 00:58:41.661
- it wasn't the Peter Boa, same thing. He had been appointed by Governor By as the new commissioner. And

00:58:41.661 --> 00:58:47.799
- he's standing up there and I'm taking it all in, brand new person. And he said, is my assessor out there?

00:58:47.799 --> 00:58:53.995
- And I'm looking around and I didn't know who he was. And he said, well, I'm from Monroe County. I thought,

00:58:53.995 --> 00:58:57.470
- ooh, it's me. And I kind of did this and he said, you know,

00:58:57.762 --> 00:59:04.233
- I don't know anything about this. You're going to have to help me. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness.

00:59:04.233 --> 00:59:10.639
- But it's been, what, almost 40 years? The man stayed there for two terms, two of my terms, I think.

00:59:10.639 --> 00:59:17.302
- And then, of course, he went back. He never left. But brilliant gentleman. And so he went with me, with

00:59:17.302 --> 00:59:23.709
- Lisa and I, to conference last week. It was so much fun, guys. You wouldn't believe the people that

00:59:23.709 --> 00:59:24.670
- he had taught.

00:59:25.986 --> 00:59:32.587
- that was teaching in there. And one of the ladies, we took a classified force land thing. And we know

00:59:32.587 --> 00:59:39.189
- Brenda very well. We've worked with her for years. And she came up to Kurt and she said, Dr. Zorn, do

00:59:39.189 --> 00:59:45.596
- you remember me? And of course I could tell he had no idea who that person was. And he said, well,

00:59:45.596 --> 00:59:48.638
- I'm sorry, did I teach you? And she said, yes.

00:59:48.738 --> 00:59:55.887
- 30 some odd years ago, I graduated from your class and she went right to the state DNR and she's been

00:59:55.887 --> 01:00:02.965
- there ever since. And she was so excited, but so many people came up that had had Kurt in school. So

01:00:02.965 --> 01:00:10.254
- it's really, it's, you know, things just kind of go around and it was fun. So it was a good conference.

01:00:10.254 --> 01:00:17.403
- Kurt had a good time, great classes. So it was busy. It's a busy time for us. That's Councilor Wilts.

01:00:17.403 --> 01:00:18.174
- Thank you.

01:00:18.466 --> 01:00:30.371
- The reassessment fund is one of the frozen levy five. And it looks like it's slated to be short for

01:00:30.371 --> 01:00:42.633
- 27 with this budget, which we've bumped into with a couple of things. And I know we can rearrange, but

01:00:42.633 --> 01:00:47.038
- it's something that I just wanted to

01:00:47.938 --> 01:00:57.897
- that's something you're aware of or if you're. Every year and seems like every budget year it goes up

01:00:57.897 --> 01:01:07.759
- and down. I never know if it's going to be. You know, because it's one of the funds that you kind of

01:01:07.759 --> 01:01:14.398
- voice it on that frozen levy. I thought and Marty, of course, is my

01:01:15.010 --> 01:01:23.497
- We never, you know, it's also a dedicated fund that what we don't use this year rolls into next year.

01:01:23.497 --> 01:01:32.317
- You know that and that that helps us. We kind of stay ahead of the curve just because of that. I'm sorry,

01:01:32.317 --> 01:01:41.470
- Marty. Those have any questions. It is one of the funds that I said we have to keep an eye on because when we

01:01:41.730 --> 01:01:49.088
- didn't give the levy growth to any of these other funds and kept it all in county general. It appeared

01:01:49.088 --> 01:01:56.517
- anyway that some of those funds were going to have to take some of the levy from county general so that

01:01:56.517 --> 01:02:03.946
- we, because once again, if there's not enough money in each individual separate fund, they can't borrow

01:02:03.946 --> 01:02:10.590
- from, you know, without being paid back in the same year unless they've changed law on that.

01:02:11.490 --> 01:02:21.084
- so we don't want anybody not being able to pay the bills i think the auditor wanted to comment on that

01:02:21.084 --> 01:02:30.398
- if i may um i think we've um discussed at each meeting we've had recently um what we did was funnel

01:02:30.626 --> 01:02:36.478
- We left things just as they were last year, or I'm sorry, the last budget season for 2026 this year.

01:02:36.478 --> 01:02:42.329
- The way the levy was, we put everything additional into general, that we have no intention of things

01:02:42.329 --> 01:02:48.123
- remaining. That's completely up to you. So we just prepared you to be able to move things around as

01:02:48.123 --> 01:02:54.090
- you feel necessary. So that is why we did that. Typically anything that we can possibly spare from the

01:02:54.090 --> 01:02:59.710
- other funds goes into the general fund. So we have it set up that way to begin. However, this is

01:02:59.938 --> 01:03:10.254
- you know, it's your role, obviously, to spread that money out. Anybody else have any questions or comments

01:03:10.254 --> 01:03:20.184
- on this budget item? All right. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Hawk? Yes.

01:03:20.184 --> 01:03:29.150
- Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes.

01:03:29.858 --> 01:03:37.937
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. I like your new process.

01:03:37.937 --> 01:03:45.790
- Thank you. Have a wonderful night. I had 25 minutes. I have never had 25 minutes and I didn't even take

01:03:45.790 --> 01:03:53.643
- it. It's okay. I tried to use it. That you did. Can I ask one question? Yes, go ahead. Don't come here.

01:03:53.643 --> 01:03:58.174
- What happened to the hands on the clock? Got the night off.

01:03:58.338 --> 01:04:07.268
- We're saving money. We're not chasing. We're not saving money. It's all about. I think that was a part

01:04:07.268 --> 01:04:16.024
- of the budget presentation. But thank you. That was a good laugh. We need it that way. All right. We

01:04:16.024 --> 01:04:25.214
- can always count on the assessor for making budget lively. All right. Next up is our aviation department.

01:04:25.346 --> 01:04:34.400
- Council I move to open for discussion or end review. Fund 1107-0000 aviation fund and fund 4801-0000

01:04:34.400 --> 01:04:44.082
- aviation construction. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. We are joined by Mr Carlos Leverty.

01:04:44.082 --> 01:04:53.226
- Welcome. Good evening. How are we all doing tonight? Wonderful. We have a pretty straightforward 2027

01:04:53.226 --> 01:04:54.750
- proposed budget.

01:04:54.850 --> 01:05:16.318
- that we've included. One including myself. The only elective increase we're asking for is in part time

01:05:16.318 --> 01:05:24.446
- to return us to 2025 levels of 40,000.

01:05:24.834 --> 01:05:33.372
- But since then, we've hired an ASC certified mechanic on our part time roster to help us out with the

01:05:33.372 --> 01:05:41.826
- equipment that we have and to help with that and to help us with the long term savings of not having

01:05:41.826 --> 01:05:50.196
- to send our equipment out to retail locations in town. So we're trying to put $10,000 there to save

01:05:50.196 --> 01:05:54.046
- us more money in the long term with services.

01:05:55.458 --> 01:06:06.706
- The. In the two hundreds, the only increase I'm asking for in the two hundreds. Is. Line 24202 and it

01:06:06.706 --> 01:06:16.190
- didn't make it into the projected budget here, but it's 24202 gas oil and lubricants.

01:06:16.802 --> 01:06:28.432
- We programmed $19,000, but we've already expended $26,000 this year. So I'm asking for an amount of

01:06:28.432 --> 01:06:40.411
- $28,500 for next year. And that's largely our fuel costs for the airport equipment that we use to plow

01:06:40.411 --> 01:06:44.830
- snow and such. All right, is that it?

01:06:44.930 --> 01:06:55.997
- Okay, sorry. I'm going manual paper mode here today. Go for it, yeah. In the 300s, we have a 20% predicted

01:06:55.997 --> 01:07:06.339
- increase in our other insurance. This is line 33008. We were notified to expect a 20% increase, and

01:07:06.339 --> 01:07:11.614
- so that is reflected in that $81,240 amount there.

01:07:15.362 --> 01:07:27.707
- And we were also informed by CBU for utilities on line 36003. We were told to expect a 4% increase,

01:07:27.707 --> 01:07:40.916
- and that's reflected in the $76,648 amount there. That's what our change is for 1107. And in 4801 Aviation

01:07:40.916 --> 01:07:43.262
- Construction Fund,

01:07:43.714 --> 01:07:53.600
- We've set aside some dollars there. This is the revenue fund. We've set aside $1,250 for our Airbnb

01:07:53.600 --> 01:07:57.950
- supplies. $10,000 for contractual services.

01:07:58.434 --> 01:08:06.866
- $10,000 for contractual, 35,000 for promotion, advertising and these were lines here in the threes that

01:08:06.866 --> 01:08:15.299
- were removed from the 11 07 budget, so we're using airport revenue to directly fund. These lines 10,000

01:08:15.299 --> 01:08:23.407
- for contractual 30,000 35,000 for promotion, advertising 2500 for Airbnb services like repairs that

01:08:23.407 --> 01:08:26.974
- have to happen from time to time. And we've

01:08:27.202 --> 01:08:39.637
- which happens time to time and the remaining vehicle purchase. And. What the remaining lines with the

01:08:39.637 --> 01:08:51.950
- $1 they're just placeholders for us in there. Oh, sorry. That is all I have really weird. OK, sorry,

01:08:51.950 --> 01:08:55.486
- it's OK. I just that was OK.

01:08:55.810 --> 01:09:05.088
- have any questions or comments for Mr. Larry? Yes, Council member Henry. Thank you, Madam President.

01:09:05.088 --> 01:09:14.459
- Thank you for being in two questions. So what was the what was the gas amount again on 24202? It's 28

01:09:14.459 --> 01:09:23.921
- requesting 28,500. I've OK, thank you on that. Then the 36 years or three that the CBU utilities. Yes,

01:09:23.921 --> 01:09:25.758
- so related to this.

01:09:26.338 --> 01:09:32.982
- Are we able to talk about our progress about getting a larger pipe out there? Is that something you

01:09:32.982 --> 01:09:39.892
- want to get into tonight? But I only ask in the context of, is this going to need to be a little larger

01:09:39.892 --> 01:09:46.602
- once we get some pipe? We're not trying to. So we do have the will serve letter, which is wonderful.

01:09:46.602 --> 01:09:53.313
- And we're not trying to front that. We're not trying to bring a pipe onto airport property without a

01:09:53.313 --> 01:09:54.110
- solid lead.

01:09:54.274 --> 01:10:01.193
- And we're actively pursuing that with some other projects that I'm not prepared to talk about tonight.

01:10:01.193 --> 01:10:08.112
- But optimistically, what I can say is in the last two weeks, we have entered into serious negotiations

01:10:08.112 --> 01:10:14.830
- with two contractors involved with stuff going on at Westgate. And we think we found a home for two

01:10:14.830 --> 01:10:21.615
- of those on airport property. Not necessarily new builds, but they're taking advantage of space that

01:10:21.615 --> 01:10:23.294
- was empty and available.

01:10:23.426 --> 01:10:29.072
- And I don't know what happened, but about three weeks ago, the phone just started ringing off the hook

01:10:29.072 --> 01:10:34.663
- at our offices with Westgate folks looking for a place to set up shop, and they want to be on airport

01:10:34.663 --> 01:10:40.364
- property. So we're very optimistic about the outlook there. Great. Well, I guess they'll be paying that

01:10:40.364 --> 01:10:46.119
- utility at some point, not us. But that is a desire. Yes. We've got to use that as a wedge to talk about

01:10:46.119 --> 01:10:52.094
- it. But I think we're good. Thank you, Madam President. Anybody else have any questions or comments? No. Oh.

01:10:52.674 --> 01:11:03.590
- Councilor Wilts. In the aviation construction budget, I'm sure I have been provided the revenue for

01:11:03.590 --> 01:11:14.942
- information, but I have too much paper and I can't find it. Could someone tell me? That's a real thing.

01:11:18.882 --> 01:11:39.213
- The estimated revenue entered for the 4B is $140,902. Well within your means on that front unless I'm

01:11:39.213 --> 01:11:48.382
- mistaken. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right.

01:11:50.690 --> 01:11:59.722
- that was all I wanted to check so it's very good question anybody else yes councilmember hawk right

01:11:59.722 --> 01:12:08.754
- would you explain to to us in the public where the money comes from for that construction fund yeah

01:12:08.754 --> 01:12:12.638
- I love answering this question this is all

01:12:13.058 --> 01:12:21.684
- revenue that is generated on airport property through leasing the land that we own, charging for services

01:12:21.684 --> 01:12:29.904
- such as landing fees for commercial operators. We charge a percentage, nine cents a gallon for every

01:12:29.904 --> 01:12:38.042
- gallon of fuel that is pumped on airport property and other various charges like providing aircraft

01:12:38.042 --> 01:12:43.006
- rescue firefighting services when the airline charters come.

01:12:43.106 --> 01:12:53.375
- And yeah, business is good right now, and we're seeing unprecedented levels of revenue generation. What

01:12:53.375 --> 01:13:03.446
- about the farmers? Where does that money go? That goes right into that construction fund. And I can't

01:13:03.446 --> 01:13:07.198
- tell you on hand right now, I forget.

01:13:07.618 --> 01:13:15.893
- What we're what we're getting per year out of that, but that is the farm lease. I think we farm approximately

01:13:15.893 --> 01:13:23.567
- 300 acres of airport property and that is probably our number one revenue generator right there a lot

01:13:23.567 --> 01:13:25.598
- of popcorn being produced.

01:13:27.490 --> 01:13:35.486
- I'm not sure. I'm not sure. We want some popcorn and a lot of they do a lot of popcorn and I keep forgetting

01:13:35.486 --> 01:13:43.115
- to take him up on the offer, but I'd love to maybe perhaps bring Council some airport popcorn sometime.

01:13:43.115 --> 01:13:50.524
- Airport. I love that. Yeah. Look at everybody. Thanks for sharing that because I'm not sure everyone

01:13:50.524 --> 01:13:52.798
- knows how hard you work to try

01:13:53.698 --> 01:14:01.464
- For me, that's probably my number two goal, besides making the airport the safest environment we possibly

01:14:01.464 --> 01:14:09.011
- can. But revenue generation, all airports, they don't all like to talk about it, but we have a mandate

01:14:09.011 --> 01:14:16.410
- from the FAA to strive for self-sufficiency and not rely on local tax dollars to operate. So we want

01:14:16.410 --> 01:14:21.246
- to make aviation pay for aviation. All right, well, best of luck.

01:14:21.602 --> 01:14:27.451
- That's why when you hear me talk about making that west side developable, you know, and cleaning up

01:14:27.451 --> 01:14:33.534
- the Cave Creek watershed, that's all about making the airport acreage that we have that's not available

01:14:33.534 --> 01:14:39.616
- for aviation use, like an extra runway or something that we don't need. But instead of just having that

01:14:39.616 --> 01:14:45.524
- sitting there follow and even unfarmable, let's get that shovel ready. Let's put some development in

01:14:45.524 --> 01:14:49.150
- there, generate some revenue for airport, and that'll go into

01:14:49.538 --> 01:14:56.998
- right back into our coffers so that we can rely on those dollars instead of the levy. Well, you're singing

01:14:56.998 --> 01:15:04.178
- my tune on this because that your location and I don't know that we've always thought of it like that,

01:15:04.178 --> 01:15:11.150
- but that location is such a hop, skip and jump from so much going on on that West side and the West

01:15:11.150 --> 01:15:16.030
- side gets often very overlooked. But between life sciences, Ivy Tech,

01:15:16.130 --> 01:15:24.443
- the amount of people moving, flowing, going, working, looking for work, and now we have transit access.

01:15:24.443 --> 01:15:32.516
- I just think that that is something to keep an eye on that has not traditionally been something that

01:15:32.516 --> 01:15:39.070
- eyeballs have been glaring at there. Seeing Council Member Iverson has something.

01:15:39.170 --> 01:15:50.400
- Before I make the motion on gas oil and lubricants, I wanted to ask a question that I try and ask every

01:15:50.400 --> 01:16:01.199
- single year. How many years out are we from commercial flights? I ask every. Yeah, you do. And it's

01:16:01.199 --> 01:16:08.542
- an exciting question. I'm going to say, do I have to give a number?

01:16:09.154 --> 01:16:16.997
- you can say whatever you want because I'd rather an honest answer than let's say yeah let's say let's

01:16:16.997 --> 01:16:25.148
- say let's say an honest number let's say 10 years and it's because you know the economics and the reality

01:16:25.148 --> 01:16:32.222
- of what a commercial flight is going to be in the future is rapidly changing with eVTOL and

01:16:33.474 --> 01:16:40.399
- You know, nobody wants to talk about Project Skyforge anymore, but that type of aviation is rapidly

01:16:40.399 --> 01:16:47.533
- developing and becoming available when it comes online. It's going to be available to smaller regional

01:16:47.533 --> 01:16:54.458
- airports like this, where it's going to connect us to, you know, a hub airport like IND. And so the

01:16:54.458 --> 01:17:00.414
- theory is you'll be able to go to the Monroe County Airport, check in there with your

01:17:00.898 --> 01:17:07.952
- with your airline, give them your bags or whatever, and you'll get on this electric vehicle of some

01:17:07.952 --> 01:17:15.006
- sort. Initially, it'll be piloted by a human being. In the future, it won't be. And then you'll get

01:17:15.006 --> 01:17:22.271
- dropped off right at your terminal where you're going to catch a hydrogen-powered 737, 757. That's the

01:17:22.271 --> 01:17:28.126
- future. But I can't tell you exactly how long it's going to be till it comes here.

01:17:28.290 --> 01:17:35.920
- The economics of getting on an Embraer 135 now, like you do at IND, but the economics of getting on

01:17:35.920 --> 01:17:43.855
- a commuter jet right now to go to Chicago or Washington, D.C., it's just not quite there yet. You would

01:17:43.855 --> 01:17:51.561
- need about you and 40,000 of your best friends to fly every single year out of Monroe County Airport

01:17:51.561 --> 01:17:57.054
- to make that happen. There's other airports that have a slightly better

01:17:57.410 --> 01:18:05.100
- and they do have air carrier service, but it's being subsidized into the millions of dollars every year

01:18:05.100 --> 01:18:12.643
- by a large institution. And in in conversations that we've had in the community, there doesn't really

01:18:12.643 --> 01:18:20.407
- seem to be an appetite for that large of a subsidy here. The only one and the only one that keeps asking

01:18:20.407 --> 01:18:27.358
- alright time for emotion. I love the question. Alright, well in fund 1107 aviation dash 0000.

01:18:27.746 --> 01:18:37.303
- And then we're going to line 24202 gas, oil and lubricants. We just wanna make sure the screens caught

01:18:37.303 --> 01:18:47.046
- up with what I'm saying. We're gonna set that line please to $20,500. Second. All right, we got a motion

01:18:47.046 --> 01:18:55.582
- and a second on the item. Any further questions or comments on this amendment? Seeing none.

01:18:56.226 --> 01:19:06.136
- All those in favor of this amendment should abide by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.

01:19:06.136 --> 01:19:16.640
- All right, motion carries. Thank you much for that. And yes. So I received a text message from Amy Garst,

01:19:16.640 --> 01:19:24.766
- who is the financial person, and she said the farm takes in 103,931,000 per year.

01:19:29.026 --> 01:19:39.805
- $103,931 per year. Yeah. That's what I said. Yeah. I like it. It's Amy. Thank you, Amy. Yeah. And I

01:19:39.805 --> 01:19:50.692
- think before we move to Rojava, I think Councilor Walts had a question. Just one more question. It's

01:19:50.692 --> 01:19:58.238
- about Wi-Fi and connectivity because I know that y'all are out there.

01:19:59.586 --> 01:20:09.189
- I know that you're one of the offices that isn't connected hardwired to the rest of the county, which

01:20:09.189 --> 01:20:18.887
- is a lot to deal with, I'm sure. But A, is that posing any development issues for you? Or are you able

01:20:18.887 --> 01:20:25.854
- to work around that with other? OK, this is something that I don't really

01:20:27.458 --> 01:20:35.517
- understand very well. I've asked over the years, numerous times, and here we go, Amy. Amy asked me about

01:20:35.517 --> 01:20:43.269
- this every week because it's killing her because she can't do her job at airport property. She's got

01:20:43.269 --> 01:20:51.175
- to file her claims and everything else that has to be done. So she's always borrowing desks in various

01:20:51.175 --> 01:20:55.166
- departments with these folks here and they see her.

01:20:55.266 --> 01:21:01.539
- And then she has to come back to the airport to do her work. So I see her half the time in her office

01:21:01.539 --> 01:21:07.936
- at the airport and then half the time she's either at the highway offices or the showers building until

01:21:07.936 --> 01:21:14.332
- they kick her out because they leave at a certain time that she's not done working. So I've asked this,

01:21:14.332 --> 01:21:19.006
- we have commercial fiber at the airport, but I've been told it doesn't meet

01:21:19.650 --> 01:21:26.880
- the requirements that the county has or there are certain pieces of equipment that would have to be

01:21:26.880 --> 01:21:34.183
- installed at the airport to make it compatible. And I know I'm butchering this, but I'm sure TSD can

01:21:34.183 --> 01:21:41.630
- come behind me and clarify this for everybody. But I've just been told either the infrastructure isn't

01:21:41.630 --> 01:21:47.486
- there or it costs too much. But the Board of Aviation Commissioners has inquired

01:21:47.650 --> 01:22:00.020
- to get the infrastructure in place. And we haven't been given a clear answer. And I don't recall offhand

01:22:00.020 --> 01:22:10.622
- if it was a technical issue that is that that could not be overcome or if perhaps it just

01:22:11.362 --> 01:22:17.368
- it just got forgotten about. But we've asked numerous times, if it's $50,000, let us know because we

01:22:17.368 --> 01:22:23.315
- have the construction fund and the board would be more than happy to pay for that if it's something

01:22:23.315 --> 01:22:29.262
- we can afford. But there seems to be, I don't know what it is, if it's a technical issue or if it's

01:22:29.262 --> 01:22:35.387
- something else, but we don't have clarity on that. But I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes because

01:22:35.387 --> 01:22:39.550
- I wasn't prepared for this question tonight and I can't remember what

01:22:39.714 --> 01:22:47.124
- the issue, what the answer was. But I can tell you, yeah, it's killing Amy. And it bothers the board

01:22:47.124 --> 01:22:54.533
- of aviation commissioners. And it's something that we want to fix. Because we have fiber. We do have

01:22:54.533 --> 01:23:02.089
- fiber from different commercial providers on airport property. And so I just don't know what the issue

01:23:02.089 --> 01:23:07.518
- is. I'll ask around. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just to kind of follow up on that,

01:23:07.682 --> 01:23:14.611
- If we think about this era where tomorrow morning is 25 years post 9-11, airports these days, commercial

01:23:14.611 --> 01:23:21.343
- or not, by their nature are some of the most secure locations we could possibly have in comparison to

01:23:21.343 --> 01:23:28.075
- other things in the county. I don't know. I would hope. Yeah. So my gosh, if we put a man on the moon

01:23:28.075 --> 01:23:35.070
- in 1969, there's got to be a way on that airport. I don't understand it because there's several different

01:23:35.426 --> 01:23:41.659
- providers that do have fiber and I know for factors AT&T is bringing fiber into the tower because that

01:23:41.659 --> 01:23:47.892
- was an FAA initiative they in the last couple years they've been working on replacing all copper lines

01:23:47.892 --> 01:23:53.944
- with fiber and we were one of those projects this year so AT&T goes to the tower and I know that we

01:23:53.944 --> 01:23:59.390
- have Smithville bringing fiber in for our purposes um and TSD is aware of that but I just

01:24:00.002 --> 01:24:06.981
- And maybe they gave me a really good reason that I cannot just recall at the moment, but I think it

01:24:06.981 --> 01:24:14.031
- was something like the fiber that we do have just doesn't meet the requirements or we don't have the

01:24:14.031 --> 01:24:21.219
- infrastructure, the magic box that would plug in at the airport to put us on the county's network. But

01:24:21.219 --> 01:24:28.478
- that's a question for TSD, not me. We've inquired and we just don't get anywhere. But I love everybody.

01:24:29.378 --> 01:24:37.034
- I love you. Can I steal that one? We love everybody, but you asked the direct question, and it's a question

01:24:37.034 --> 01:24:44.477
- that we've asked, and I get asked by the board, and I get asked by Amy all the time, and it just doesn't

01:24:44.477 --> 01:24:51.707
- go anywhere. So I'm asking a different question. Yes, we love everybody. Does the highway garage have

01:24:51.707 --> 01:24:53.054
- this ability? Yes.

01:24:56.002 --> 01:25:03.612
- That was the five minutes. That's your five minutes. Oh, five minutes, excuse me. Yeah, so we know that

01:25:03.612 --> 01:25:11.296
- it's going down here. I don't know. This is a question for TSD. And if there's a financial matter, we've

01:25:11.296 --> 01:25:17.150
- inquired to what that cost would be. I see the auditor's office had their hand.

01:25:17.410 --> 01:25:24.982
- I do just want to chime in. I have seen the struggle that happens with this office. Amy is a frequent

01:25:24.982 --> 01:25:32.628
- flyer in our office. She'll come over to submit claims. There are positives and negatives to different

01:25:32.628 --> 01:25:40.200
- office environments, especially whenever you don't have control over the atmosphere, and that's fine.

01:25:40.200 --> 01:25:41.982
- But I just want to say,

01:25:42.114 --> 01:25:50.997
- She tries her best to be effective and efficient and does everything in her power. She does jump through

01:25:50.997 --> 01:25:59.711
- our offices and we recognize. And even something as simple as running a ledger can take her far longer

01:25:59.711 --> 01:26:08.170
- than any other department. That seems onerous. Onerous. That's a good word. Thank you. Yeah, it is.

01:26:08.170 --> 01:26:12.062
- Yeah. So I thank you for asking the question.

01:26:12.162 --> 01:26:20.984
- And if there's anything that you folks can do to help us get answers on that, even if it's an answer

01:26:20.984 --> 01:26:30.418
- that we don't want to hear, but clarity would be wonderful. All right. But we love everybody. We appreciate

01:26:30.418 --> 01:26:39.415
- the love, even when in pain. OK, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor

01:26:39.415 --> 01:26:40.638
- Crosley? Yes.

01:26:41.602 --> 01:26:48.379
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. And Councilor

01:26:48.379 --> 01:26:55.024
- Henry? Yes. Motion passes, unanimous. Thank you very much. What was that motion for again? It passed

01:26:55.024 --> 01:27:01.604
- the budget. Did we do the? Amendment. We did the amendment, okay. We got to take care of it. We got

01:27:01.604 --> 01:27:07.262
- to take care of it. Thank you very much. Have a great night. You too. Thank you, Amy.

01:27:08.642 --> 01:27:17.921
- All right next up is from the auditor's office. Council I move to open for discussion and review funds

01:27:17.921 --> 01:27:27.560
- 1000-002 general fund auditor fund 1181-0000 plat book fund and finally fund 1216-0000 auditors ineligible

01:27:27.560 --> 01:27:34.046
- fund. All right we got a motion and a second. Ms. Gregory take it away.

01:27:34.242 --> 01:27:41.228
- Yes, thank you, Council. This is going to be quick and painless. So just starting with the general fund,

01:27:41.228 --> 01:27:48.147
- well, for all of our funds, we followed your direction, kept a flat budget, even in areas where we know

01:27:48.147 --> 01:27:54.866
- you'll probably see me all the time anyway, but where you'll see us come back for an additional more

01:27:54.866 --> 01:28:01.918
- than likely. So our general fund budget has a 1.8% increase, and that's just due to the COLA adjustments.

01:28:02.082 --> 01:28:08.937
- but there was some fluctuation where we had some turnover with personnel so some of the account lines

01:28:08.937 --> 01:28:15.792
- were a little higher somewhere a little lower but that's where we ended up so just a couple notes for

01:28:15.792 --> 01:28:22.513
- you to keep in mind we know that postage is increasing again we kept that line flat we'll come back

01:28:22.513 --> 01:28:27.486
- to you for an additional if necessary if we can't move some things around

01:28:27.618 --> 01:28:36.293
- we've been able to purchase. Additionally supplies we haven't had to purchase paper printer paper in

01:28:36.293 --> 01:28:45.140
- quite some time we had a back stock with rainbow printing where we got a great deal. Years ago we have

01:28:45.140 --> 01:28:53.815
- since run out so we know that there's going to be an expense there as well. So that is everything in

01:28:53.815 --> 01:28:56.478
- my general fund budget for you

01:28:57.794 --> 01:29:07.371
- the contractual line. Um major. It's not major, but the only shift there is, um, there, um, is $7000.

01:29:07.371 --> 01:29:16.761
- I believe it was that went from a, um. Employee personnel line over to the contractual line. Um all

01:29:16.761 --> 01:29:26.526
- that is is for our, um our tiff neutralization. We are not contracting with an employee anymore. We are

01:29:27.394 --> 01:29:34.917
- takes care of that budget. And then PLAT stayed exactly the same from last year. This fund has a lower

01:29:34.917 --> 01:29:42.368
- cash balance. We are not really utilizing PLAT right now, but I do want to keep that $500 budgeted in

01:29:42.368 --> 01:29:50.110
- office supplies, just as if we can use that perhaps before coming to you in the general fund or so forth.

01:29:50.466 --> 01:29:58.306
- I'm happy to entertain any questions. I usually give you a little bit of history on how the auditors

01:29:58.306 --> 01:30:06.301
- and eligible and plaque book are funded. You've heard it many times, but auditors and eligible is just

01:30:06.301 --> 01:30:14.142
- from those ineligible homestead and back tax and associated fees. So that goes into that fun and can

01:30:14.142 --> 01:30:17.790
- be used for any auditor services. Essentially,

01:30:18.146 --> 01:30:28.057
- are collection of fees for legal descriptions and has to be used just for maintaining those records.

01:30:28.057 --> 01:30:38.262
- Very much for that. Thank you all. Any questions on the auditor's budget for the auditor? You did good.

01:30:38.262 --> 01:30:43.070
- We obviously have no questions for you. Bueller?

01:30:45.858 --> 01:30:53.690
- I know Councilor Wilton are the liaisons for this and so we met with Ms. Gregory and Ms. Woodruff and

01:30:53.690 --> 01:31:01.753
- as always very pleased with how this always turns out so thank you for that. Okay seeing no other seeing

01:31:01.753 --> 01:31:08.894
- no questions or comments on this may we please have a roll oh did you sorry you got one more

01:31:08.994 --> 01:31:15.343
- Yes, I'm so sorry. I failed to mention with my auditors and eligible funds, we're going to need to watch

01:31:15.343 --> 01:31:21.752
- that cash balance closely. Obviously, we're not going to let it go into the negative. But if we do expend

01:31:21.752 --> 01:31:27.799
- our anticipated budget, which we're waiting on some invoices in our contractual line just for audit

01:31:27.799 --> 01:31:33.906
- support, gap compilation, et cetera, we could run into trouble in 2027. But again, we'll keep an eye

01:31:33.906 --> 01:31:37.534
- on that. We'll come to you and express any need for change.

01:31:37.986 --> 01:31:47.173
- right sounds good thank you very much for that the roll call vote counselor iverson yes counselor fido

01:31:47.173 --> 01:31:56.449
- yes counselor hawk yes counselor wilts yes counselor henry yes counselor dickard and counselor crossley

01:31:56.449 --> 01:31:59.838
- yes motion passes unanimous all right

01:32:00.386 --> 01:32:08.610
- very much, and that concludes the auditor's presentation for the evening. Speaking of the auditor, something

01:32:08.610 --> 01:32:16.381
- was brought to my attention yesterday by Ms. Gregory. And so I wanted to be able to give her the floor

01:32:16.381 --> 01:32:23.926
- to talk to us about this. Ms. Woodruff is going to start on this. We'll kind of tag team, but she's

01:32:23.926 --> 01:32:28.830
- pulling it up now, and we'll talk it through. OK, thank you all.

01:32:33.634 --> 01:32:42.574
- With the new gateway, with the new gateway changes, it makes moving some information across those programs

01:32:42.574 --> 01:32:51.180
- a little bit more cumbersome. As we found, if we have to unsubmit the form three, it undoes all of our

01:32:51.180 --> 01:32:59.786
- work that we've done in the form four and in the form one. And that is all the budget changes you make

01:32:59.786 --> 01:33:02.878
- at these sessions. So if we can get,

01:33:03.074 --> 01:33:09.572
- the levies close to where we think they will be, that would be really helpful because we're going to

01:33:09.572 --> 01:33:16.263
- have to unsubmit the Form 3 already. We are willing to unsubmit and resubmit as many times as the state

01:33:16.263 --> 01:33:22.697
- allows us, but the less we have to do that, the less work it will be for our office. Right in front

01:33:22.697 --> 01:33:29.388
- of you, I have the document displayed for the deep dive calculation, and these are showing all of those

01:33:29.388 --> 01:33:32.862
- levy funds. So if you guys had interest in discussing

01:33:33.058 --> 01:33:40.566
- where you want those levies to be for 2027. We can discuss that tonight. We cannot discuss it. It's

01:33:40.566 --> 01:33:48.300
- really up to what you guys would like to do at this moment. Thank you for that. Any questions? I think

01:33:48.300 --> 01:33:55.883
- I saw Councilor Wilts his hand up and then I'll go Iverson next. So if we discuss it tonight, you're

01:33:55.883 --> 01:34:01.214
- not going to go in and make changes based on that right away, are you?

01:34:02.882 --> 01:34:09.921
- We will not. I mean, for advertisement, we have the drop dead date of when we need to advertise. Statutorily,

01:34:09.921 --> 01:34:16.768
- we need to advertise by a certain date. As far as the adopted amounts, no. I mean, we'll have placeholders

01:34:16.768 --> 01:34:23.359
- in there. But you still, until the adoption, you can do anything you want. I guess my question is, you

01:34:23.359 --> 01:34:29.758
- don't want to keep going in and out because you have to redo all the work. But you're going to have

01:34:29.758 --> 01:34:31.870
- to go in at least one more time.

01:34:33.506 --> 01:34:45.544
- It better to have the conversation now why. So I just to clarify for the form three. we're just going

01:34:45.544 --> 01:34:49.438
- to go back in and and tweak the.

01:34:49.602 --> 01:34:55.813
- we don't need to have a discussion on that right now, but it does. As far as the changes, like we know

01:34:55.813 --> 01:35:01.903
- that we're going to go have to go back in and redo the changes that occur with the 4B as far as like

01:35:01.903 --> 01:35:07.993
- budgetary. But as far as the levy, the two sections are different. So the advertisement levy and the

01:35:07.993 --> 01:35:14.325
- adopted levy. Does that make sense? We were just talking about getting you better numbers on the adopted

01:35:14.325 --> 01:35:17.822
- version of the 4B, which is kind of the closer to actual.

01:35:19.010 --> 01:35:27.533
- just so you can kind of see where you might actually end up. Now, having said that, I do, depending

01:35:27.533 --> 01:35:36.055
- on how you want to go, it does seem like there might be some work necessary to maybe reduce some of

01:35:36.055 --> 01:35:44.578
- those budgets so we don't have huge swings in levy raises and some of those funds. However, I mean,

01:35:44.578 --> 01:35:47.902
- that's totally up to the seven of you.

01:35:48.066 --> 01:35:54.215
- And another aspect of this is as we also need to be as we're making adjustments in those funds those

01:35:54.215 --> 01:36:00.425
- minimum. Balances are really important that we need to be paying attention to I agree that that we do

01:36:00.425 --> 01:36:06.512
- need to reduce those funds but at the same time I think and that's if you whoever's controlling the

01:36:06.512 --> 01:36:12.600
- screen you scroll to the right just a little bit that's where that minimum fund balance information

01:36:12.600 --> 01:36:16.862
- is and so I I really appreciate that that's right next to all of the.

01:36:17.474 --> 01:36:24.199
- the deep dive, because that's gonna be an important aspect of what we're thinking about. Yeah,

01:36:24.199 --> 01:36:31.490
- and if I may, that's something Councilor Hawk is so great at pointing out for us and reminding us just

01:36:31.490 --> 01:36:38.993
- that, you know, from that end of the year and for the first six months, we need to be able to get through

01:36:38.993 --> 01:36:47.134
- and pay our bills. So that's why that's important. Right. Council Hall. I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.

01:36:47.874 --> 01:36:55.185
- It's essential we get that conversation with the commissioners, because we don't know what we're doing

01:36:55.185 --> 01:37:02.497
- until they say what we can do with the edit. You see what I'm saying? We're all sitting here, tied up,

01:37:02.497 --> 01:37:09.453
- waiting on two out of three commissioners to say, oh, well, we'll let you give everybody a raise,

01:37:09.453 --> 01:37:16.126
- or no, we don't. I mean, we're just sitting here. We're doing the best we can. And thank you.

01:37:17.090 --> 01:37:26.401
- to our council president because this has not been as onerous as we thought it could be, but we haven't

01:37:26.401 --> 01:37:35.533
- hit the heavy watershed. We may have a lot of heavy lifting to do. So how can we tell you except that

01:37:35.533 --> 01:37:44.755
- my theory is we've got to make each of those funds that's in the max levy funds come out whole for the

01:37:44.755 --> 01:37:46.814
- midpoint of next year.

01:37:47.810 --> 01:37:54.780
- That's what you've got to end up making sure you're carrying forward that much. So that means that's

01:37:54.780 --> 01:38:02.371
- how much you've got to help it. We know it's reassessment. We've got to help. We know it's health department.

01:38:02.371 --> 01:38:09.549
- We've got to help. And I know there's people counting on, oh, well, they won't spend all the money they

01:38:09.549 --> 01:38:16.519
- have. So we'll count on reversions. That's a scary thought. The aviation wasn't that short? Election

01:38:16.519 --> 01:38:17.278
- was short.

01:38:17.826 --> 01:38:24.913
- Whichever ones all of them are probably all of them because none of them are given that the increase

01:38:24.913 --> 01:38:32.001
- we kept all the increase and I understand why the auditor did this she pulled all the levy increases

01:38:32.001 --> 01:38:36.702
- into general and she pulled all of that miscellaneous revenue from

01:38:37.186 --> 01:39:04.382
- would have left no room for the 2% raise. So I mean, I just don't

01:39:04.642 --> 01:39:17.476
- I mean, but I think we need some guidance from the auditor's office. Okay, a couple things. Tuesday,

01:39:17.476 --> 01:39:27.006
- when we conversed with Ms. Kelly a bit regarding her funds and reversions,

01:39:27.650 --> 01:39:46.854
- that they're going to utilize most of their budget. I guess they are planning on purchasing that vehicle.

01:39:46.854 --> 01:39:56.094
- They're working with maintenance. And so this that

01:39:56.610 --> 01:40:05.485
- budget. It looks like roughly maybe I think it was around $130,000. She thought would revert rather

01:40:05.485 --> 01:40:14.715
- than. The sizable sum because they've spent very little so far in this 2026 budget. I said right there.

01:40:14.715 --> 01:40:23.679
- So what about that? What about that vehicle? So yes, I think more conversation needs to occur there.

01:40:23.679 --> 01:40:26.430
- We need to look and see if she

01:40:26.562 --> 01:40:35.894
- that we're going to have a lot of uncertainty in 2027 as well. A lot of uncertainty. Um at this point,

01:40:35.894 --> 01:40:45.135
- unfortunately. Now with regard to the election fund, I think it might be beneficial to talk more with

01:40:45.135 --> 01:40:54.014
- the clerk. Um we know inflation is going to increase expenses, but my understanding is it's just.

01:40:54.722 --> 01:41:03.700
- I don't understand the increase, I guess, the significant increase that we're seeing with that budget.

01:41:03.700 --> 01:41:12.591
- We were reimbursed for that city election last time. It was just under $500,000, I believe. So again,

01:41:12.591 --> 01:41:21.657
- we just need some explanation to understand the numbers. Thank you very much for that. And I mean, also

01:41:21.657 --> 01:41:24.446
- to Councilor Hawke's point too,

01:41:24.674 --> 01:41:32.008
- I know we potentially have those things moved over currently in edit, but this is like we're waiting

01:41:32.008 --> 01:41:39.415
- pending approval. So next week is the final round of budget hearings and or budget presentations. And

01:41:39.415 --> 01:41:47.113
- then on the 22nd is when again as a reminder like we did yesterday is when we will have that conversation

01:41:47.113 --> 01:41:54.302
- and the goal is to make sure that we leave that meeting on the 22nd with a clear understanding of.

01:41:54.562 --> 01:42:02.673
- what we can and what we cannot do. Because if we cannot, then we are in a kerfuffle and we are going

01:42:02.673 --> 01:42:10.784
- to have to work a lot of hard work hard. So I know maybe some folks might be watching, but we really

01:42:10.784 --> 01:42:18.815
- hope that we can do this together. And I hope that conversation on the 22nd can be very helpful and

01:42:18.815 --> 01:42:22.750
- beneficial so that we can do what we need to do.

01:42:23.458 --> 01:42:29.702
- anybody else? Yes, Councilor Henry, and then I'll go back to Hawk. Thank you for that. And thank you

01:42:29.702 --> 01:42:35.884
- for that walkthrough too. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I don't really have much more to add on that other than

01:42:35.884 --> 01:42:42.190
- I think with the election fund specifically that I have maybe Councilor Hawk is the only one that has

01:42:42.190 --> 01:42:48.434
- institutional memory about the last time we changed over clerks. It's been 10 years. Has anyone else

01:42:48.434 --> 01:42:52.638
- been here? Well, it's now you guys renew. So it's really you. So so

01:42:52.930 --> 01:42:59.052
- I was wondering. Is the election board sort of the caretaker of that budget until the new clerk get

01:42:59.052 --> 01:43:05.418
- seated and I didn't hear a lot from the board you know about what it needed to do a municipal next year

01:43:05.418 --> 01:43:10.622
- isn't the next first walking in and immediately has to get to work on that election.

01:43:11.298 --> 01:43:16.405
- I guess I don't know what I was thinking I'd see in that, you know, in terms of what that would carry

01:43:16.405 --> 01:43:21.463
- over on, you know, what's necessary versus, you know, it's like the acting clerk or it's like when I

01:43:21.463 --> 01:43:26.620
- think about federal government turnover, like somebody's in charge of the shop until the new folks get

01:43:26.620 --> 01:43:31.627
- there and I don't know what that looks like. But that budget may need a little more analysis on it,

01:43:31.627 --> 01:43:36.885
- especially when we didn't have the good numbers about the municipal costs like in front of us last night

01:43:36.885 --> 01:43:37.886
- or the other night.

01:43:38.210 --> 01:43:44.832
- I agree with everybody here. I am very hopeful that this is an easy year. Last year, we put the edit

01:43:44.832 --> 01:43:51.584
- to work as a sort of a bludgeon to try to get through to the budget to get us deficit neutral to zero.

01:43:51.584 --> 01:43:58.272
- If we have to scramble like that again, it's yeah, it's not gonna be short nights, but no, thank you,

01:43:58.272 --> 01:44:00.894
- Madam President. I appreciate it. Yeah.

01:44:01.410 --> 01:44:09.990
- You and Councilmember Iverson are the liaisons to the clerk's office. So maybe that's something that

01:44:09.990 --> 01:44:18.571
- you two can work together with to take a look at. The last one was 23. Or citywide elections was 23.

01:44:18.571 --> 01:44:27.066
- Yeah. Okay. So maybe we can look at that. Councilor Hogg. Okay. Regarding the election fund budget.

01:44:27.066 --> 01:44:28.510
- A few years ago,

01:44:28.706 --> 01:44:35.638
- in our wisdom after getting slapped with trying to come up with money for the presidential election

01:44:35.638 --> 01:44:42.709
- we determined that we would put back every year one fourth of the amount of the money that we thought

01:44:42.709 --> 01:44:49.919
- the presidential election would be and left it in that election fund because we will have to cover that

01:44:49.919 --> 01:44:56.852
- presidential election whether we have that in the fund or the county general fund and it was like a

01:44:56.852 --> 01:44:58.238
- forced way to do it

01:44:58.754 --> 01:45:05.348
- It was not sitting there as slush money. It was a forced way to do it. And yet we have act like we,

01:45:05.348 --> 01:45:12.139
- it's gonna be free. I mean, where are we gonna get the money? That's gonna be, it's gonna hit us right

01:45:12.139 --> 01:45:19.129
- in the head when we have to come up with that money, because it is not going to be inexpensive. So that's

01:45:19.129 --> 01:45:25.920
- the reason why that fund is supposed to be sitting there with more money to carry over. Anyway, that's

01:45:25.920 --> 01:45:28.030
- my two cents on that. My other,

01:45:28.354 --> 01:45:35.109
- thought that I wanted to share was I haven't heard back about the uh the state's what is health first

01:45:35.109 --> 01:45:41.931
- or whatever healthy first uh that the thought was well we're going to be getting that anytime well you

01:45:41.931 --> 01:45:48.819
- know it was also the thought that you know she's going to have all this money left over and that wasn't

01:45:48.819 --> 01:45:55.442
- true so I think we've just got to be very very careful about that whole health fund those two funds

01:45:55.442 --> 01:45:57.694
- now that's going to come together

01:45:58.818 --> 01:46:10.668
- I'm just a worry board. I'm sorry, guys. No, that's fine. It's okay. It's okay. Did I hear somebody

01:46:10.668 --> 01:46:23.466
- else maybe make your comment? Okay. So with that being said, thank you to the auditor's office for bringing

01:46:23.466 --> 01:46:28.798
- that to our attention and sorry to hear that

01:46:29.090 --> 01:46:35.920
- that's changing some numbers that are entering that information in. Ed, may I have another request?

01:46:35.920 --> 01:46:42.956
- Yes. Unless maybe it's someplace, and I'm just missing it. I understand that they didn't want to enter

01:46:42.956 --> 01:46:50.196
- all the different numbers about whether it's got re-arrays or whatever, and they had just put in a higher

01:46:50.196 --> 01:46:56.958
- number and just sort of left it like that. But I'm not seeing like that actual number of requests.

01:46:57.186 --> 01:47:06.516
- that would be to cover that raise. I mean, where is this? I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying.

01:47:06.516 --> 01:47:15.401
- They put it in the budgets. It's already baked into their each budget. It's all in the budgets, but

01:47:15.401 --> 01:47:24.287
- I thought there was some recognition that they put in the advertised amount at 40% higher. But that

01:47:24.287 --> 01:47:26.686
- other number that is less,

01:47:27.874 --> 01:47:37.892
- not sure that that actually covered all the 2% raise. I mean, I'm just trying to figure out what is

01:47:37.892 --> 01:47:48.211
- the real number of what the requests are, not just the number that we pretended. So there are a couple

01:47:48.211 --> 01:47:56.126
- of resources that I know about. And one, I checked my email today, and there's

01:47:56.290 --> 01:48:07.042
- a really cool sheet with the updates from each session, and those are the right numbers. It's a spreadsheet

01:48:07.042 --> 01:48:17.097
- from Kim, and she resends it. I saw that. Part of what I think is confusing is the packets have that

01:48:17.097 --> 01:48:23.070
- 40 percent budget. I've been following along on the screen,

01:48:24.002 --> 01:48:31.571
- for the past meetings and tonight for the first time, I just followed in the packet thinking that's

01:48:31.571 --> 01:48:39.367
- probably better, but it is, there's a trade off because the packet includes that 40% inflation for the

01:48:39.367 --> 01:48:47.011
- current. And so you're not comparing apples to oranges in the same way. So it is very, it is hard to

01:48:47.011 --> 01:48:52.158
- reconcile. I wanna look at the packet because it's supposed to have

01:48:53.826 --> 01:49:02.503
- requested and published, right? So you'll have the actual plus the publication numbers. Go for it. Yeah,

01:49:02.503 --> 01:49:10.767
- while Michelle's looking that up, I can give you a quick rundown of the end of year numbers for the

01:49:10.767 --> 01:49:19.774
- past few years for that election fund if you're interested. Just because we have been kind of rebuilding it.

01:49:19.938 --> 01:49:35.563
- If you will, so 2022, we ended under a million dollars, $957,114,000. Then 2023, we ended pretty close,

01:49:35.563 --> 01:49:47.582
- $928,527. End of 2024, $1,436,661. And then we ended 2025 with over $2 million.

01:49:47.842 --> 01:49:55.885
- we've had a larger budget this year, so 2,064,850. So I think it feels like we've been slowly kind of

01:49:55.885 --> 01:50:03.927
- building it back up now. You know, I we've. Had a larger budget again this year, so we'll have to see

01:50:03.927 --> 01:50:12.285
- where we end up, but. You are correct. The budgets that we have been putting into the packet does include

01:50:12.285 --> 01:50:17.726
- the advertisement because we were not allowed to enter or remove the

01:50:17.858 --> 01:50:26.878
- there was a reason Carly wanted to make sure something balanced before we started moving that. So I

01:50:26.878 --> 01:50:35.987
- think the next week's budget will not have that in there, but the ones that we had sent out for like

01:50:35.987 --> 01:50:45.368
- the last week as well as this week have had that in there. But I did send a complete budget to you guys

01:50:45.368 --> 01:50:47.262
- that did not include

01:50:47.394 --> 01:50:55.162
- the advertising and it was in an email and when I find it, I will resend it back out. But it is also

01:50:55.162 --> 01:51:03.006
- there should have been a link to it. That's in the SharePoint that you guys should be able to get to.

01:51:03.650 --> 01:51:09.398
- and I'll let the auditor respond. Yeah. Yeah. To clarify, we needed one of the two categories, like

01:51:09.398 --> 01:51:15.433
- the published, for example, to remain the same so we could audit against it. However, then the requested

01:51:15.433 --> 01:51:21.296
- is where the changes are being made and where we identified Michelle could remove those advertisement

01:51:21.296 --> 01:51:27.043
- totals. Another way to do that would be just to exclude those advertisement fund numbers so you can

01:51:27.043 --> 01:51:29.630
- get the actuals to provide you with reports.

01:51:31.394 --> 01:51:39.166
- And that's what I did. I sent them a report without that in there. So, yeah. Oh, it had the report that

01:51:39.166 --> 01:51:46.639
- you're saying you sent out a few weeks ago. I don't think it had the raises in there yet. I've done

01:51:46.639 --> 01:51:51.646
- it twice. Yeah. I'm looking at the SharePoint one right now. Yeah.

01:51:52.034 --> 01:52:00.260
- I did one earlier before we did the cola, and then I did another one after the cola. That's right. It

01:52:00.260 --> 01:52:08.164
- was titled as such. Yes. That should be item 15 in your binder that you received. Oh, the binder.

01:52:08.164 --> 01:52:16.229
- Collaboration, look at this. Collaboration station. All right. Well, anything else that y'all would

01:52:16.229 --> 01:52:21.310
- like to add? Thank you all for bringing that to our attention.

01:52:21.538 --> 01:52:31.058
- And we got some work to do just within next week. But again, definitely on the 22nd, we definitely need

01:52:31.058 --> 01:52:40.211
- to bring our thinking caps in and work diligently with the commissioners as well with this. So yes,

01:52:40.211 --> 01:52:49.822
- Councilor Haas. And also I believe that tonight see something about the net assessed value was increased

01:52:49.922 --> 01:52:58.184
- we thought it was lower than there was another increase or something in the last few days. Did I not

01:52:58.184 --> 01:53:06.529
- see that? And if so, and I think this was part of your email, did I dream all this? That you adjusted

01:53:06.529 --> 01:53:14.709
- then how much the remember that Q funds are rate controlled funds. And so that rate is then tied to

01:53:14.709 --> 01:53:19.454
- the net assessed value. And so that would change how much

01:53:19.874 --> 01:53:31.383
- the major bridge. Uh. The cube funds would get in the cube bridge is in that Max Levy so. And I always

01:53:31.383 --> 01:53:42.556
- get confused exactly within how the major bridge is also. A right control fund and they but there's

01:53:42.556 --> 01:53:48.702
- not a part of the adjustments, but it is a part of the

01:53:49.058 --> 01:53:57.191
- So that's confusing to me. As far as I'm aware, the 2027 CNAP number is not going to change. So the

01:53:57.191 --> 01:54:05.405
- department seems satisfied with that. I did see that email come through Councilor Hawk. I think that

01:54:05.405 --> 01:54:13.945
- must be for, and I'll have to double check. I'll look for it and get back with you. But I believe that's

01:54:13.945 --> 01:54:16.222
- for the next billing cycle.

01:54:22.370 --> 01:54:31.096
- Okay. Well, thank you, everybody, and for departments for presenting those agenda items, presenting

01:54:31.096 --> 01:54:40.432
- your budget presentations. But that concludes for the evening and we are recessed until Tuesday, September

01:54:40.432 --> 01:54:44.446
- 15th, 2026. Good night. Thank you. Thank you.
